they play to hold the debt ceiling hostage. aides say half the conference is ready to let the nation default. speaker boehner will school them on the real threat later this week. even a temporary extension for, say, two or three months could rattle the markets and threaten the nation's credit rating. last time they hashled out a debt deal? summer of 2011 and we ended up more than a trillion dollars in mandatory spending cuts and congress still hasn't addressed and delayed again until march. we start with nbc's peter alexander outside the white house. peter, the president also told congress if they don't want to take the political risk of raising the limit, give him the power. he'll do it himself. >> reporter: that's clear f. you aren't going to do it, i'll do it myself. in essence today, toure, he basically dared congress not to up the debt ceiling today. obviously, one of the comments he said that i think is pretty interesting is saying in his own language, they will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the econom